


Six Feet Under

by quartzguts



Series: bad things happen (mostly to noct) [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV, Buried Alive, Gen, Hurt Noctis Lucis Caelum, Hurt and Very Little Comfort, Kidnapping, Minor Self Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22910401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartzguts/pseuds/quartzguts
Summary: This feels like such a stupid way to go out. Noctis doesn't even know what's wrong, strictly speaking. All he knows is that breathing hurts, makes him dizzy, and he curls in on himself while he sucks in painful, short breaths.
Series: bad things happen (mostly to noct) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1550269
Comments: 2
Kudos: 166
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Six Feet Under

**Author's Note:**

> written for my bad things happen bingo card. prompt: buried alive.  
> 

His room is too quiet. Noctis yawns and turns on his side, trying to find a position comfortable enough to sleep in. The alarm clock reads 3:21am in blocky red letters. The bedroom in his apartment is still unfamiliar, with half unpacked boxes littering the floor and only a few posters hanging on the walls. Noctis feels like he should be done decorating at least this space by now, but moving is unexpectedly exhausting and he just doesn't have the energy to work on it. Already he feels like going back to the Citadel. Being away from the prying eyes of the Council and the constant stream of politics and gossip is nice, but not nice enough that he’s willing to sacrifice sleep for it. It hasn’t been easy for him to sleep somewhere unfamiliar in years; not since the Marilith. Not since Tenebrae.

He shifts again, stretching out his sore limbs, and wishes he’d asked Prompto, Ignis, and Gladio to spend the night.

There’s a shift in the air that has him rousing again. The clock reads 3:46am now, and Noctis nearly groans - twenty minutes is barely long enough to be called a nap. There’s something off, though, and that has him hesitant to make noise. Slowly he eases himself up, blinking against the shadows spilling over his room. There’s still no sound, only the distant thrum of cars and club music, but there’s something _not right_. Something very, _very_ wrong.

His eyes land on a black figure at the edge of his room, crouched next to a corner. It’s very still, probably a pile of crumpled laundry or an unpacked bag or something, but the second Noctis lays eyes on it the hair on the back of his neck rises, and his entire body seizes with nervousness. He gulps, his throat suddenly unbearably dry, and, without looking away, he gropes around for the lamp on his bedside table. He misjudges its position and pushes it. It crashes to the ground, the bulb shattering, and Noctis jumps, twisting around to look at the glass littering the floor.

When his head snaps back, the mass of shadow is standing.

Noctis yells, but then there’s a hand around his mouth and another around his torso, trapping his arms to his sides, and the man leaning against the wall rushes forward, leaps on the bed and sits on his kicking legs. He yanks a syringe out of his jacket pocket and slams it into Noctis’s arm, pushing burning, dangerous liquid into his veins. “Don’t worry, Your Highness,” the man rumbles. “You won’t remember a thing.”

As Noctis passes out, he thinks, uselessly, that he forgot to lock the window.

-=*=-

This feels like such a stupid way to go out. Noctis doesn't even know what's wrong, strictly speaking. All he knows is that breathing hurts, makes him dizzy, and he curls in on himself while he sucks in painful, short breaths.

His knees scrape against something wooden. Noctis cracks open his eyes, peering into the darkness. He can't see; it's too black, and the darkness is oppressive. It’s pressing down on him slowly, suffocating him gently. He coughs, the sound deafening with the lack of any other noise, and reaches out a hand. His fingertips touch the edge of a wall not inches away from his torso. It's definitely wood, scraping uncomfortably against his fingernails. He follows it up, digging into it until splinters get stuck under his nails, and finds the place where the wall meets the ceiling. Then he follows that over to the other wall. The room is tiny, barely big enough to fit him while he’s lying on his back. He stretches out his feet, and his toes brush up against another wall.

It hits him like a freight train. Suddenly his eyes are wide, his breaths short and panicked, and he’s gulping down air at far too fast a rate. _Calm down_ , he thinks, _calm down or you’ll suffocate, because you’re - you -_

He’s in a coffin. A _coffin_.

Maybe it would be less terrifying if he could remember how he got in here, but he’s drawing a blank. All he remembers is getting ready for bed, dreading the Council meeting he’d have to attend in the morning, and then waking up here. It seems too surreal. Maybe he just rolled out of bed and ended up under it somehow, and that’s why it’s so dark. Another brush of his fingers over the wood confirms that yes, this is real. He’s in a coffin, and a cheaply made one at that. It’s a hysterical, stupid thought, to be offended by the lack of quality of his final resting place, but - shit, he isn’t thinking straight. He’s in a _coffin._ He’s going to suffocate.

He takes a deep gulp of air and imagines Cor’s voice in his mind. He’s been briefed many times on a wide variety of abduction situations, and that included the protocol for being stuck in a confined space with no breathing holes. He holds his breath as he checks the coffin as thoroughly as he can, running his hands over every inch of the damn thing. It’s completely sealed. He lets his breath out slowly, takes in another one. _Stay calm. Breath carefully. Conserve your oxygen until the Crownsguard can get here._

Because he has to believe the Crownsguard will get here. They have to know he’s been taken, have to be looking for him now. They have to.

His next breath hurts again, makes his lungs seize uncomfortably, but he takes it anyway. If he panics again it’ll only deplete his air faster. He just has to wait.

Just because he’s waiting, though, doesn’t mean he can’t do anything. He pushes at the lid above him, trying to get it to budge. It’s weighed down, probably with dirt and - crap, no. He can’t think about the earth around him, the earthworms wriggling through it, waiting eagerly for him to die and the coffin to decompose. Waiting for their chance to burrow into his bloated, stinking corpse. Noctis squeezes his eyes shut. _Stop thinking_ , he tells himself. _Just stop._ The Crownsguard _will_ find him. He just has to hold out until then.

His pushing quickly turns into scratching. The constant movement puts a strain on his muscles, and they start to ache from being suspended above his motionless body. The wood splinters further and draws little drops of blood from his fingertips. The sparks of pain are soothing. They remind him that he’s still alive. For now.

Noctis breathes. Sucks in, holds it, then lets it out slowly. Doesn’t panic. He scratches and scratches, and suddenly, unexpectedly, the lid gives a little.

Noctis gasps inadvertently as a bit of soil spills in through the tiny hole. It piles on his chest, cold and moist. It’s just a sample of the weight above him, likely six feet of soil, all of it waiting to collapse and bury him. Is it safer to stay in the coffin? Or should he push and try to dig his way up? Isn’t it difficult to do that, impossible? He read a comic once where a character dug himself out of his own grave. Noctis doesn’t know if that’s something a person can do in reality, though; while he _was_ briefed on what to do if he gets stuck in a confined container, he was not briefed on what to do if he was buried alive.

More dirt comes in. It’s wet but not muddy. Noctis doesn’t know if that’s good or not. He suddenly remembers that he’s supposed to cover his mouth and nose during a fire to keep from inhaling the smoke, and he figures the same could work with dirt, so he pushes his shirt up around his face and bites it to keep the fabric in place. He takes hissing breaths through his teeth while he claws and scratches.

The dirt piles on his chest at a steady pace, pressing down on him. Belatedly he realizes it might not have been smart to start opening the coffin right above his heart. He grabs at the splintered edges of the hole and pushes down, ripping apart the cheap wood lid. More dirt comes in, mixes with the blood on his hands, and he tries and sit up.

The dirt is heavy against his shoulders and head. His entire body strains as he forces himself up out of the coffin, desperately clawing away at it to make a space for himself. More soil falls, piling up on him, and the pressure is so intense he almost wishes he’d stayed where he was. His eyes water as dust falls on his face, and he snaps them shut. It feels like there’s less air in the soil than there was in the coffin, and Noctis’s chest spasms, pain inching its way into every nerve, his head spinning. His lungs scream at him from the lack of oxygen, and he takes in another deep breath through his sweat soaked shirt.

Suddenly the earth around him shifts. Something stabs violently into the dirt in front of him. Noctis startles, trying to jerk back but unable to move with the soil surrounding him. The earth above him moves, crashing into his eyes and making him blink back tears, but the pressure lightens a bit. When the thing stabs down again, Noctis grabs it, pulling hard.

The shovel jerks back, and Noctis pulls again insistently. The dirt shifts behind him, and he realizes there’s more than one shovel digging. He desperately hopes they figure out that he’s not in the coffin anymore, lest they dig into his skull and kill him on accident.

Luckily, there’s a gentler tug on the shovel, and Noctis takes the invitation, pushing away at the dirt as he slowly creeps up. The silence surrounds him, threatening him, and he imagines the earthworms watching him with disappointment. Slowly the dirt falls enough that little spots of sun are shining through, and he can hear faint voices. He recognizes Gladio and Cor, and sobs around his shirt.

When it happens, it’s unexpected. Noctis’s hands break the surface and there are other hands grabbing him, unbearably hot compared to the cold, cold earth. He gasps as his face is uncovered, breathing in so deep he hacks up dirt and spit. His lungs burn, his fingers ache, but he’s alive.

Well. He hopes. This is all so surreal he thinks it might be a hallucination born from oxygen deprivation. If it is, it’s a damn sweet daydream.

“Noct!” Gladio shouts, far too loud, and his large hands are on Noctis’s face, wiping the tears and dirt off of him. He pulls Noctis the rest of the way out with ease and cuddles him close. A woman wearing the Crownsguard medical uniform kneels next to them to take his pulse, check his breathing, and Noctis coughs and curls into his Shield.

“Noct, c’mon, talk to me,” Gladio says. His breathing reminds Noctis of himself, panicking as he suffocated. Noctis takes a breath of sweet air and hacks up more spit.

“Gonna be fine, Gladdy,” he murmurs. “Chill.”

“I’ll chill when you can breath properly,” Gladio says, and Noctis realizes he’s wheezing. Breathing doesn’t hurt anymore though, so he doesn’t really mind.

The sun shines above him. Noctis stares up at the sky, wondering how much time he’s missing. It had been near three in the morning when he’d fallen asleep, but he definitely wasn’t buried in the ground for hours on end. What had even happened? Had he been kidnapped? Drugged? He grimaces. The thought doesn’t sit well in his churning stomach.

The medic steps aside and Cor comes into view. “Your Highness,” he says. Noctis coughs up a laugh at the propriety. “You’re safe now. We’re going to get you back to Insomnia, alright?”

“Sure,” Noctis says. “I’m thirsty. Got some water?”

-=*=-

Hours later, he sinks into his old bed at the Citadel. There’s a double guard posted outside, Gladio and Ignis are spending the night in the sitting room attached to the bedroom, and Noctis is safe. The dirt had been washed off with a hot shower ages ago, and his fingers are bandaged, the splinters having been carefully removed by the medical staff. Noctis pokes at the bandages, then presses down on one hard. It turns red. He tries to do the same with the bandaid on his arm; it covers a needle mark. It doesn’t bleed, but it hurts all the same.

He leans back against his bed, laying over the covers, and stares up at the darkness. It’s not completely black; there’s the light of the city through the window, the blink of his phone charging on the dresser. The room is just as he left it; disarmingly familiar. The air tastes of cool AC and antique furniture. A stuffed animal sits proudly on the dresser across from his bed. Noctis is safe here.

He reaches a hand up, trying to touch the ceiling. His fingers brush against the air. He lies like that for a while, before reaching over to turn on the bedside lamp.

He doesn’t sleep.


End file.
